Pakistani frustration and resentment continued to mushroom yesterday, when, due to its displeasure with a lack of Pakistani cooperation, the U.S. announced a cut of $800 million in aid to Islamabad. According to this editorial from Pakistan’s Frontier Post, U.S. aid has brought the country nothing but misery and insecurity, and in any case, amounts to much less than Washington claims. The Frontier Post...

This via my partner Steve Hynd over at Newshoogers. —————————————– Wondering what the agenda for Gov. Rick Perry’s “The Response” prayer rally is? Look no further, here are the answers: Via Rightwing Watch, the video: consists of the invitation Gov. Perry recorded asking people to attend his rally interspersed...

Could it be that after years of protecting Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, also known as the father of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program, Islamabad may be preparing to prosecute him for providing nuclear technology to rogue states? According to this editorial from Pakistan’s Frontier Post, a letter allegedly passed on by Dr. Khan to a British researcher may be a CIA forgery. If genuine, however, the document...

The only difference is that nobody’s shooting: the secessionism is the same. Just ask the citizens of Minnesota. The free “Right Wing Doonesbury” doesn’t even bother with humor on July 1. “When the just say ‘no’”??!? Paranoid marxo-nazi fantasies are “just”??? But forget the idiocy of an unfunny comic strip predicated on “attractive young adults”...

For the 4th of July weekend, On Being’s Krista Tippett replayed a 2003 interview with author and philosopher Jacob Needleman. They discussed his book, The American Soul: Rediscovering the Wisdom of the Founders. The program was titled, The Inward Work of Democracy. From the transcript: Mr. Jacob Needleman: What’s interesting about [Frederick] Douglass, why he should be an icon for all Americans,...

Are the Muslim uprisings a result of Arab distaste for the United States and Israel? According to this news item from Iran’s state-run Kayhan, Iran’s leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei has made the unlikely claim that while most of the Muslim uprisings are against the U.S. and Israel – the uprising in Syria is a plot instigated by the ‘Global Arrogance.’ The news item from...

Is it reasonable to assert, as President Obama did the other day, that, the ‘wave of war is receding’? According to this editorial from Brazil’s Estadao, while the last few years have proven the ‘folly’ of Bush’s ‘war against terrorists,’ President Obama’s belief that the ‘tide of war’ is receding may well turn out to be just as far fetched. The...

Is President Obama’s decision to follow through with plans to withdraw from Afghanistan just a misbegotten election-year ploy? According to columnist Andreas Ruesch of Switzerland’s Neue Zurcher Zeitung, Mr. Obama has sent the Taliban the wrong message at precisely the wrong time, apparently for strictly electoral purposes. For Switzerland’s Neue Zurcher Zeitung, Andreas Ruesch writes in...

Has the world seen the last of the major U.S.-mounted invasions? For Poland’s Rzeczpospolita, columnist Marek Magierowski writes that while electoral politics played a role in President Obama’s decision to withdraw from Afghanistan, the explanation goes much deeper. For Rzeczpospolita, Marek Magierowski writes in part: Obama also knows that his country is no longer capable of bearing the financial...

Some of you may have noticed that the Taliban has engaged in a terror attack on Kabul, Afghanistan’s Intercontinental Hotel. They just don’t seem interested in cooperating with the Afghan government or any Western entity. This attack may or may not be over. Apparently helicopters just shot terrorists on the hotel roof. Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN) — Gunmen and suicide bombers attacked Kabul’s...

In God We Vote by Peter Funt Mitt Romney’s emergence as the early front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination, along with Jon Huntsman’s recent entry in the race, makes certain that the 2012 campaign will continue the trend of carefully weighing candidates’ religious beliefs. Both men will be scrutinized because of their affiliation with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints...

Amid all the celebrating at the Stonewall Inn and elsewhere, the advent of same-sex marriage in New York stirs in the spouse of and co-author of a book by a divorce lawyer memories of how archaic and brutal that state’s divorce laws have always been. It was only a year ago that New York, which now recognizes the inhumanity of denying legitimacy to those who want to share their lives lovingly and legally, was...

Is Washington stabbing Hamid Karzai in the back by holding meetings with the Taliban without the involvement of his government? According to this article from Pakistan’s Frontier Post, it’s probably too late for Karzai, who whether he knows it or not, has been nothing but a U.S. stooge since the fall of the Taliban. The Frontier Post editorial says in part: It should come as no surprise. For quite...

Update: @JoshRoseneau has a very good followup (July) at @SciAm: http://is.gd/AN1HHh In 1925, Tennessee prohibited the teaching of evolution in public schools (The Butler Act). John Scopes, a high school biology teacher, was convicted of violating the law, and his trial highlighted the divide between “science” and fundamentalist (literalist) religion. (It was the first live radio broadcast from...

Several days ago I began writing a well balanced article about right wing ideas to dissolve, curtail or under-fund agencies (who knows actually) like the EPA and OSHA. Regulations are costing us jobs they say. They say the huge pile of private capital on the sidelines would come rushing to create jobs if only for those burdensome government regulations. I planned to point out in my column how a 50 state solution...

Yaakov Kirschen, Dry Bones This copyrighted cartoon is licensed to run on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

While the United States regards itself as a highly transparent democracy, columnist Enrique Lynch of Argentina’s La Capital writes that the photo taken during the killing of Osama bin Laden in the White House Situation Room reflects a blatant and dangerous exclusion of the public more reminiscent of a monarchy than a 21st century democracy. For Argentina’s La Capital, Enrique Lynch writes in part: What’s...

Is the United States behind the recent uptick of violent attacks in Iraq? According to columnist Tamam Abdulhamid of Iraq’s Kitabat, this appears to be part of U.S. a strategy to convince Iraqi lawmakers and military officials that American forces are still needed in the country. For Iraq’s Kitabat, Tamam Abdulhamid writes in part: What do the increasing frequency of such attacks and the rising...

We can but hope. WaPo’s columnist Dana Milbank, a friend of Joe’s, reacts in horror at Lieberman’s latest foray into Beck-land. The Israeli tabloid Yedioth Ahronoth came out on Wednesday with a shocking report: Republican presidential candidates Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and Michele Bachmann would join Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) at Glenn Beck’s rally in Israel in August. It turned out...

In World War II and post-war U.S. “women drivers” jokes were all the rage, a stereotypical joke form that has long since died. But in Saudia Arabia attitudes towards women drivers — and women driving — is no joke. And women there are doing something about it: Women in Saudi Arabia have been openly driving cars in defiance of an official ban on female drivers in the ultra-conservative...